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Our attorneys are pleased to offer you leading industry knowledge on what's happening in the legal arena. Below, you will find information on publications and articles authored by MVA attorneys, as well as practice group newsletters such as: Employment Law News, Immigration Update and Impact IP.

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Welcome to the second edition of our MVA Today Alumni Newsletter. We hope that you enjoyed the inaugural issue and that you will find this version informative. We wanted to start off this update with a focus on diversity and inclusion.

The article discusses whether communications and marketing team members should be more specialized and how to evaluate what skills are needed. For many in the industry, these are the decades old questions about how to combine the strengths of team members, including agency support, within larger marketing and communications divisions. The questions about specialization exist for smaller groups of teams within one of these domains as well.

Charlotte Litigation Member Tom Myrick was quoted in the Law360 article entitled, “Trust Tells Justices Beneficiary’s Residency No Bases For Tax”, which was published March 19. The article continues coverage of North Carolina’s taxation of a trust where the settlor and trustee are in New York and the only connection to the state is that a beneficiary lived there violates the due process clause, the trust told the U.S. Supreme Court.

At the start of a new year, we tend to make promises to ourselves. We often promise to address issues head-on — to be proactive instead of reactive. While most New Year’s resolutions are quickly forgotten, we urge those involved with highly regulated institutions to make and stick to at least one — to prepare for potential investigations by the House of Representatives.
To paraphrase a Navy SEAL’s remarks about the piracy of a U.S. ship: We weren’t planning on that outcome, but we were prepared for it. Investigations are coming, and delaying preparation until the institution or its executives need to testify is a mistake.
As is true with respect to any major project, when preparing to testify before the House it is helpful to break the process down into its component parts. We suggest thinking about three core elements: pre-hearing groundwork, providing information and documents, and crafting the narrative.

While the living-will process continues to evolve, it is likely that many of the central tenets and requirements will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
ON DECEMBER 20, 2018, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC; together with the FRB, the Agencies) released their determinations regarding the 2018 resolution plans of four foreign banks and announced they had finalized resolution plan guidance applying to the eight U.S. global systemically important banks (G-SIBs).1

Vapor intrusion has emerged as an important legal, scientific, and policy issue over the last decade. With this issue’s growing importance, it is prudent for persons acquiring, leasing, or developing property to include an assessment of vapor intrusion risks into their environmental due diligence process and properly address any identified vapor condition. Property owners may face significant repercussions for the failure to identify the presence of and mitigate environmental and health risks associated with vapor intrusion. In addition to the loss of certain liability protections, landowners of contaminated properties will see a decline in property value along with a diminished use of the property. The cost of retaining knowledgeable professionals, such as an environmental lawyer and consultant, to conduct a vapor intrusion analysis during the due diligence period is a slight price to pay when considering the decreased property value and potential liability under state and federal statutes.

December 13, 2018: The Gaston County Economic Development Commission is pleased to announce that Sonic Automotive, Inc. has cho¬sen to locate its newest office operations in Lowell. Located at 109 Kenworthy Avenue in Lowell, the facility will house marketing and ad¬vanced customer care operations for Sonic Automotive, Inc. Approximately 500 jobs will be created within a five-year period with an invest¬ment of $11.2 million.
Sonic Automotive, Inc., a Fortune 500 company and member of the Russell 2000 Index, is among the largest automotive retailers in the Unit-
ed States. Sonic Automotive's Lowell operation will provide support of sales operations of the Sonic Automotive family. Sonic’s dealerships provide comprehensive services, including sales of both new and used vehicles, vehicle service and the ability for customers to sell used vehicles to Sonic and EchoPark Automotive stores.

The nation’s political divide was reflected in last night’s Congressional elections. Republicans will maintain control of the Senate, but Democrats have gained control of the House of Representatives.
In the North Carolina Legislature, Democrats picked up enough seats in the House of Representatives to break the Republican supermajority. Democrats appear to have picked up the six seats needed to do the same in the Senate, but there are a number of races too close to call.

Following tax reform at the end of 2017, cash dividends from a foreign corporate subsidiary to a domestic corporate 10 percent shareholder are exempt from U.S. income tax because the shareholder is permitted a “dividends-received deduction” equal to the amount of the dividend. However, this new deduction was not expanded to cover “deemed dividends” from foreign corporate subsidiaries under Section 956 resulting from full pledges of the stock of, or guarantees by, such foreign corporate subsidiaries. As a result, loan security arrangements for U.S. borrowers that have foreign corporate subsidiaries have continued to be driven by the Section 956 “deemed dividend” rules, and credit agreements have continued to include “deemed dividend”-driven restrictions.

Family offices, and the investment professionals serving them, have long been participants in traditional M&A transactions. Of late, however, middle market and lower-middle market family offices are experiencing an increased migration of private equity professionals from traditional private equity funds. This migration has prompted an increased need for investment professionals (and their advisors) to consider the often-perceived sleepy legal field of trusts and estates when structuring both a family office itself and its transactions.

Charlotte Litigation Associate Katherine Lamberth, Member Ed O’Keefe, and Counsel Kristina Whittaker co-authored the article titled, “Fintechs Can Now Be Banks, Too: Overview of the OCC’s Fintech Charter and Related Considerations” that was published in Market Solutions, Volume 27, Number 3.

By Nicole Schiavo. Earlier this month the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it had directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make several changes to the Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA), including the removal of a question asking…

By Neil Bloomfield. The Task Force on Consumer Compliance of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) recently published the modified interagency examination procedures for the Flood Disaster Protection Act (FDPA) designed to promote consistency and communication of supervisory expectations…

A defendant by any other name does not smell as sweet when it comes to removing class actions from state court to federal court, even under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”). Congress passed CAFA to address perceived abuses in class action litigation and to provide an avenue for defendants to remove class … Continue reading →

By Nicole Schiavo. Late last month the CFPB reignited debate when it issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPR”) stating its intention to allow the “GSE Patch” to expire in January 2021. The GSE Patch allows what would otherwise…

By Neil Bloomfield. The Federal Reserve Board (Federal Reserve) recently announced it will develop a “new round-the-clock real-time payment and settlement service”, named the FedNow℠Service to support faster payments in the United States. FedNow will be a national instant payment…

By Barbara Meeks and Kristina Whittaker. Last month the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the federal bank regulators issued a Joint Statement aimed at improving transparency into their risk-focused examination and supervision of banks’ compliance with Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-money…

In the aftermath of sales practices, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) recently published a bulletin on fraud risk management principles that are applicable to all federally chartered financial institutions. The bulletin supplements existing OCC and interagency…

Charlotte Financial Regulatory Advice and Response Members Barbara Meeks and Ed O’Keefe’s article titled, “Pursuit of a Regulatory Practice Dream: The Story of 2 Powerhouse Bank GCs Uniting,” was published by Corporate Counsel on July 26, 2019. In the article,…

As anticipated, today New York’s governor signed into law the Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act (SHIELD Act) discussed in our recap of US data breach laws enacted in the first half of 2019. The bill passed the state senate by a margin of 41 – 21. The law updates the body of … Continue reading →

Colleagues, I hope you are enjoying your summer and have had or are planning a break. Summer breaks help us maintain a healthy balance of rest and work. Speaking of balance, over a recent beach vacation, I had time to study…

As government authorities around the world create a constantly evolving regulatory environment, conduct overlapping investigations, and bring parallel proceedings, our goal is to serve as a leading-edge resource for companies navigating these waters. Moore & Van Allen’s WCIRA News Clips…

A few weeks ago, Texas signed into law an amendment to its data breach law, capping off a busy first half of 2019 for state lawmakers in this arena. As we gear up for the second half of 2019, we thought a recap was worthwhile. The legislation reflects a number of trends, including increasing obligations … Continue reading →

As government authorities around the world create a constantly evolving regulatory environment, conduct overlapping investigations, and bring parallel proceedings, companies are facing perhaps the most challenging regulatory and criminal enforcement environment. Our goal is to serve as a leading-edge resource…

It was a relatively quiet week at the General Assembly. No votes were taken on the House floor until Wednesday and on the Senate floor until Thursday. Only about a dozen bills had any action this week. Issue Insights State and Legislative Issues Abortion Bill Most advocates on both sides of the abortion issue have had […]

NEW TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS APPROVED, WHAT’S NEXT? (May 2019): The City of Charlotte has revamped its approach to Transit Oriented Development (TOD) as an initial step in the process of transforming the city into a liveable one that provides transportation options for all residents to access employment, services, and housing. As Chair of the … Continue reading →

This week, Gov. Roy Cooper (D) this week issued his first veto since Democrats broke the super-majority in the legislature. Despite having a short week, House members filed over 200 new bills before leaving Wednesday for a spring break. The Senate continued to meet this week and will take a break next week. Issue Insights […]

The General Assembly continued work on substantive legislation this week, with several high profile bills involving health care moving forward. In another health care story, Atrium Health, Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, and Wake Forest University announced plans to negotiate a merger of the hospital systems and to bring a second campus of the Wake Forest […]